I had the same image on my Win10 Enterprise work laptop forever (version 1909, Build 18363.657). I got fed up with it, so I researched about where these images are located, then proceed to delete any/all images and data found. This did remove the stuck image…but now I just have nothing for the lock screen, which is worse! Now, no matter what I choose (Picture, Slideshow, or Windows Spotlight) no image gets displayed on the lock screen. Perhaps worth noting that the "Spotlight" info does still get displayed. For example, "What small mountain town is this?"
I've been in IT for a decade and more than half of that was Desktop Support and/or Win SysAdmin work. Point is, I'm very much more than capable, but this problem is still eluding me. I've tried everything I've found online, most recently with this SU post, but nothing has worked.
Update 1: I ran a chkdsk /f /r
and rebooted. It says it's "Fixing (C:) Stage 4: 10%…" so hopefully this resolves the issue.
Update 2: Negative, the chkdsk
did not fix the issue. I also ran DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
– it finished and found nothing.
Update 3: The "preview" image shown in Settings -> Personalization -> Lock screen -> Preview: background (Windows Spotlight) is changing! Something between the setting and what makes the image actually appear on the lock screen is broken.
Update 4: I was hopeful that this registry key might fix the issue: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System\DisableLogonBackgroundImage
-> DWORD key with a value of “0” – however, it has not. Worth noting, the key was not present on the machine, so I tried manually creating it and rebooting, but there's no change. Perhaps flipping the equivalent setting in the local Group Policy might work…?
Final update – FIXED…..it seemed fixed for most of today, but no. The issue has returned!
C:\WINDOWS\system32>SFC /Scannow
Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.
Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline
repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag.
Update 5: – I have found the issue! Permissions on this folder were broken/incorrect: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData
Re-adding SYSTEM with full-permissions looks to have fixed the issue! 🙂
Best Answer
To first check for Windows corruption, do the following:
If no corruption was found, the list below contains the known fixes to Spotlight. If none of them works for you, then Windows is corrupted and will require Repair Install with an In-place Upgrade.
Method 1
%LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\LocalState\Assets
(but not the folder itself)%LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy\Settings
settings.dat
androaming.lock
tosettings.dat.bak
androaming.lock.bak
Method 2
This is a stronger version of the first method.
%LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ContentDeliveryManager_cw5n1h2txyewy
(take backup)Method 3 : Using PowerShell
Run PowerShell as administrator
Type the following command :
Reboot
In Start > Personalization >Lock Screen, change Background back to Windows Spotlight